Chapter 2: Best-friend like Deedah

BEST FRIEND LIKE DEEDAH

"I'm not buying any sweets honey!" Deedah McKenna yells from her kitchen. Those kids are at it again. Deedah always warns them not to stop at her apartment door with a bucket of expired sweets and awfully packaged chocolates. It isn't a surprise that the kids make the chocolates themselves.

The person knocks again and Deedah groans before stomping to the door and yanking it open.

"LOOK— Charlie? What are you-" She finally notices Charlie's swollen red eyes, "Oh, hell no!" She immediately pulls her best friend into her bachelorette apparent. It was actually ironic how Deedah owns a bachelorette apartment when she's two years into her marriage.

Black women's independence can not be measured.

"I'm fine Dee," The thirteenth lie Charlie has muttered this month.

If she is anything right now it's definitely not fine. Angry, yes. But not fine.

"Bitch, Imma slap the truth outta you," Deedah snaps as she pulls her best friend into a tight hug.

This gesture seems to unlock her dam and streaks of tears fell at a fast rate. Disoriented sobs escapes her as she clutches the purple blouse that her best friend had on.

Deedah's stomach is fluffy and soft under Charlie's cheek. It is unlike Mario's hard rock abs that flexed wantonly under her thighs or torso.

Charlie shakes her head as the wails pour louder. She feels so helpless and used. She knows this wouldn't have hurt much if she'd just followed Dee's advice to ditch Mario a long time ago. Charlie just took it as one of Dee's bluff. It's Deedah. She doesn't like any man for her Char-poo.

Deedah grimaces as she pats her girlfriend on her back. She's seated on her expensive leather couch while Charlie laid sprawled on the floor with her head on the former's lap.

"It's okay, baby. Mario is a dead asshole, I know." Dee coos at her best friend.

Deedah already knows this would happen. Honestly, she expected this more sooner than later. She'd known the moment she set her feet in that restaurant that Mario was a slimy womanizer. 

It was the first month Charlie had met Mario and the former had invited Dee for the usual break-my-best-friend's-heart-and-I'll-skin-your-balls talk. Dee immediately noticed how Mario's eyes sampled the tacky waitress' boobs as she served them their tequila.

Even with that, word has been going round that Mario's been dealing with some mafia shit.

Deedah doesn't even know whether to feel sad or happy that she left that dog in the expense of her happiness.

Charlie's sobs has now mellowed down to soft sniffles and occasional whines. Her head aches and her throat feels sore and scratchy.

She raises her head from Dee's lap—which was now numb—and her eyes catch a wink of the customized wall clock beside the mini bar, 3:15pm.

Her schedule has totally been scattered. This almost brings tears back to her eyes but she wills herself not to let them drop. She can't possibly waste her tears on just Mario.

She has to reserve some for next time and other heartbreaks.

"Char, you okay now?"

Charlie winces as she sits beside Dee. She nods and leans her head on the head of the couch.

"Good, 'cos I've been waiting for you to finish crying so we can discuss what position we're gonna bury his fucking body!"

Charlie chuckles. She raises her head and sits straight, "We're not going to kill or bury Mario, Dee."

"Who you be fronting for?" Dee gives her a nasty look, "I know deep down you wanna freeze his balls and peel off his skin from his skeleton,"

"No. No. Deedah, we're not doing any of that. I just want to sleep, I'm so tired."

"You can sleep..." Charlie gives an appreciative nod, "...after we plan Mario's death."

Charlie groans. Her eye-roll follows suit. She stands up and walks to the wide modern kitchen where she pours herself a cup of apple juice. She would have drank it directly from the jug but she knows how nasty Dee thinks that is and she is in no mood for annoying anyone.

Knowing she won't get out of this, Charlie decides to feed into Dee's crazy fantasy, "Okay, what do you have in mind?"

Deedah whoops as she flies off the couch. She runs and perches herself on the kitchen counter so that she's leaning directly opposite Charlie.

"Ha! Okay, first..." Deedah puts on a serious face.

"Acid," she says later on.

This has apple juice spraying out of Charlie's mouth back into the cup and on the counter.

"Acid? Are you insane?!"

"What? It's just acid," Dee rolls her eyes dramatically, "Okay, what about injecting nitric acid into his nasty asshole? That shit's gonna hit good."

Charlie looks at her best friend in bewilderment. She's been living with a potential psycho for the better part of her life.

"Oh? Not good? Okay, how about mixing itching powder and weed with his cereal and dumping his body in front of the White House, I'm sure paparazzi would wanna see nasty shit like that."

"How are you even going to get to the White House?"

"I know a guy."

Charlie shakes her head with a shadow smile. Deedah made her temporarily forget at Mario for sometime; more reason why Charlie can't trade Dee for anything in the whole world.

Deedah stares at her best friend, "Baby, come here," she opens her arms wide enough for Charlie to come barrelling in.

"Do you know what you need now?"

"A bag of sour patch kids?"

"Nah! Whatcha need now, girlfriend, is a 14-inch rod deep-dicking you to hell and back!" Deedah replies with a smug smile.

You'd think being best friends with Deedah for five years would make Charlie get used to Deedah's filter—or lack of.

Charlie gasps before she slaps Dee's arm. "Dee, you can't be saying vulgar words like that... Sambi is in the room," she points at the black tabby cat that lounged lazily on the cat bed along the foyer.

Deedah waves her hand dismissively. She plants a firm kiss on her best friend's forehead before they both settling in her master's bedroom where they cuddled and sulked.